The fiesty blogger Whaleoil has ramped up his campaign to reform New Zealand’s name suppression laws by launching a (so far) online crusade called SHAME.

It’s a shame to mix up Whale’s campaign for justice – ie. his legal defence – with this campaign to reform name suppression laws,which has a focus on sexual offending, rather than the broader debate about name suppression. There has to be more intellectual rigor around any campaign to change suppression laws, rather than the simplistic and moral-panic inducing call to expose alleged and/or convicted pederasts.

The Whale is also publishing “interesting names” on his Gotcha blog. They are mostly convicted and registered US sex offenders who have been arrested on serious charges in the last few days. The exception is Scott Ritter – former UN weapons inspector – who was recently arraigned on charges laid after a police online sting operation.

But for at least one of the Whale’s “interesting names” there’s more than one prominent individual at the top of the Google list. An indication of how releasing and publicising common names can also create accidental victims.

Whale is probably trying to make the point that NZ suppression laws prevent the establishment of a public sex offender registry like those operating in many American states and nationally, such as Family Watchdog. In Britain there is The RatBook, Unofficial and the no vigilante disclaimer seems a little hollow in tone and intent.